Germany’s private sector continued to see strong growth in February, despite the pace of expansion slowing down from the near seven-year high seen during the opening month of the year, according to the latest PMI® survey from IHS Markit. Flash Germany Services PMI Activity Index at 55.3 (57.3 in January), what is a 3-month low. Flash Germany Manufacturing PMI at 60.3 (61.1 in January), what is a 6-month low. While February’s flash PMI figure was down on January’s recent high, it still continued to point to a robust pace of private sector expansion in the eurozone’s largest economy. The performance so far in the first quarter remains better than that seen in final three months of 2017, which saw GDP rise 0.6%.
In the US session Exisiting Home Sales figures were released. Total existing-home sales , which are completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, sank 3.2 percent in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.38 million from a downwardly revised 5.56 million in December 2017. After last month’s decline, sales are 4.8 percent below a year ago (largest annual decline since August 2014 at 5.5 percent) and at their slowest pace since last September (5.37 million).
However, the focus of the session was on FOMC Meeting Minutes. Federal Reserve policymakers expressed a cautious outlook on wage growth amid a "few signs of a broad-based pickup in wage growth," but remained confident that inflation would "move up this year," according to the minutes of the Fed's January policy meeting. "Inflation on a 12-month basis was expected to move up this year and to stabilize around the Committee’s 2 percent objective over the medium term," the minutes showed. "While some participants heard more reports of wage pressures from their business contacts over the intermeeting period, participants generally noted few signs of a broad-based pickup in wage growth in available data,” the minutes showed.
Tomorrow, from Eurozone, German Business Climate figures will be released. Decline to 117.1 is anticipated. In the US session Unemployment Claims figures will be published. No changes are expected.
Figures to watch:
German Ifo Business Climate (Thursday 10:00)
Unemployment Claims (Thursday 14:30)
